
Ever seen a sign that says “Find us on Facebook”?
It has to be one of the most aggravating marketing calls to action.
Find you? You mean, type your business name, or its nearest approximation, into the search box of Facebook? And then you want us to assess the results, do some filtering, reject listings that aren’t related to you, reject any groups or community pages or places, until we may (fingers crossed) find your business on Facebook? <sarcasm font> that doesn’t sound difficult at all </sarcasm font>
You don’t ask customers to “find us on King William Street” or “Google our website” do you? “Look up our number in the White Pages”?
With approximately the same number of characters you’ve used to tell us to “Find us on Facebook” you could have given us your actual Facebook URL.
Life would be so much easier if Mars Coffee Bar said “Join us at facebook.com/MarsCoffeeBar”. Don’t you think?
Grab your Facebook URL
Sometimes the problem is that a business doesn’t have a vanity URL on Facebook. They are easy to acquire, by visiting www.facebook.com/username
Of course, your exact business name may have been claimed by another Facebook user. So you’ll have to go through different iterations. You might try MarsCoffeeAus for example.
Grabbing people’s attention is a battle. If you have it, you need to make it supremely easy for them to take additional steps such as connecting with you on Facebook. Don’t ask people to seek or type in addresses. So:
- Grab your Facebook URL
- Spell out your Facebook URL in marketing collateral
- Hyperlink your Facebook URL to your Facebook logos
Read Facebook’s brand and logo guidelines to make sure you comply with Facebook’s permissions. It’s interesting to note that they’ve encouraged people not to hyperlink to the Facebook login page, so I take this as another vote for hyperlinking direct to your vanity URL.
You’ve highlighted this most irritating habit by some organisations on Facebook. Thank you.
Great article, Michelle. Fantastic someone has highlighted it.
Great article Prakky, I have just signed my client up for a vanity URL this week!
Thanks Jonny. Good work.
Prakky, I own quite a few pages but can’t work out why Facebook sometimes lets me create a username, and sometimes not.
It also doesn’t always depend on the number of likes I have either, sometimes I have been able to claim a username straight away, other times I can’t no matter how many likes I have.
I’ve had the same vexing experience David. Thanks for raising it: I shall get to the bottom of it and report back!
Hi again David. I’ve read a few blog posts that discuss this phenomenon, like http://www.allfacebook.com/you-no-longer-need-25-fans-to-get-a-custom-page-url-2011-09 but can see very answers. A socmedia buddy of mine (@twillyon) speculate it may be linked to the category of page you’re creating, which is interesting. Let’s keep an eye on it?